Endless Thread

By WBUR

Technology

What's Endless Thread about?

Hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson dig into the internet's vast and curious ecosystem of online communities to find untold histories, unsolved mysteries, and other jaw-dropping stories online and IRL.

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LAST EPISODE

Worm Wars

01.27.2023

When Endless Thread producer Nora Saks learns that a "toxic, self-cloning worm that poops out of its mouth is invading Maine", she starts sounding the alarm about the impending eco-doom. Until, that is, state experts clue her into the "real ...

Endless Thread episodes:

01.27.2023 Worm Wars When Endless Thread producer Nora Saks learns that a "toxic, self-cloning worm that poops out of its mouth is invading Maine", she starts sounding the alarm about the impending eco-doom. Until, that is, state experts clue her into the "real ...
01.20.2023 'Sinbad Smith' and the troll pole Amory shares a 10-year-old Reddit post with Ben showing a photo of a college student with an epic-looking wooden staff and a caption that baffled the photo's subject. Ben shares a Trivial Pursuit question that launched a mystery fit for ...
01.13.2023 'You are powerful': Remembering Aaron Swartz Amory and Ben honor the legacy of internet activist Aaron Swartz with two people familiar with his life and work: documentary filmmaker Brian Knappenberger (The Internet's Own Boy) and Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Swartz died by suicide ...
01.06.2023 Encore: Llama at a Wedding “What are the dimensions of an adult llama?” asked a Redditor called Mrs. Sam Handwich in the "No Stupid Questions" community. "I've been hired to make a tuxedo for a llama and I don't have its measurements," she added. In ...
12.30.2022 Encore: Unsent Letters The unsent letter. We all have one, half-composed in our heads or fully-formed as an email draft. Whatever form these letters take, they go unsent because they might be better left unsent, or because we wouldn’t know how to send ...
12.24.2022 Bonus: The ‘Stinetingler’ himself Team Endless Thread is here with your holiday bonus — a bonus episode, that is! If you heard our most recent episode on 'Goosebumps The Musical,' you know that Amory got to talk to R.L. Stine, author of the wildly ...
12.23.2022 Listener beware... When producer Quincy Walters came to an Endless Thread episode ideas meeting talking about 'Goosebumps The Musical,' Amory had two questions: 1) “That’s a thing?!” and 2) “Is it… good?” Yep and YEP! So why haven’t more people heard of ...
12.16.2022 Good Bot, Bad Bot \| Part VI: Something Like Us Can a machine think like a human? Can it be conscious? For decades the answer was clear: nope. But artificial intelligence today is challenging that notion. In our last Good Bot, Bad Bot episode, Endless Thread goes to Google, the ...
12.09.2022 Good Bot, Bad Bot \| Part V: Dating Bots If you've ever used a dating app, chances are you've encountered a bot, most likely a fake account or a scammer. But this week on Endless Thread, we investigate a new type of bot that is helping users optimize their ...
12.02.2022 Good Bot, Bad Bot \| Part IV: Tay Next up in our bots series, we bring you a cautionary tale about Tay, a Microsoft chatbot that has lived on in infamy. Tay was originially modeled to be the bot-girl-next-door. But after only sixteen hours on Twitter, Tay was ...
11.25.2022 Encore: Shrinkflation From the supermarket to the housing market, products are getting smaller but prices are not. Why is this happening? And can it be stopped before the toilet paper roll disappears right before our very… reaching hands? In this encore episode, ...
11.18.2022 Good Bot, Bad Bot \| Part III: Life, death and AI Next up in our bots series, we explore a growing field of AI: immortalizing the dead through predictive AI text. We talk to two individuals who utilized this tech in different ways, and discuss how these bots can help us ...
11.11.2022 Good Bot, Bad Bot \| Part II: Political Bots Next in our series Good Bot, Bad Bot: the possibilities of bots being used in governments around the world. How can bots increase transparency and shine a light on corruption, such as insider trading, among our elected officials? Will bots ...
11.04.2022 Good Bot, Bad Bot \| Part I: Bot Therapy For the next few weeks, the Endless Thread team will be sharing stories all about the rise of bots. How are these pieces of software influencing our daily lives in sneaky, surprising ways? First up, our co-hosts delve into the ...
10.31.2022 Encore: Haunted House, Holy Water When Alex was in high school, he and his best friend used to break into abandoned houses. Alex was a tough guy, giving people hell. Until one night, in one of those abandoned houses... hell gave him something back. This ...
10.28.2022 Encore: Olga of Kiev Olga of Kiev executed one of the most bone-chilling revenge tours in history after her husband, Igor, was murdered. Then, with a burning city in her wake, she converted to Christianity and became a saint. This episode was originally released ...
10.27.2022 Encore: Imaginary Friend When Kellie's 3 year-old daughter told her about her new imaginary friend, Kellum, she didn't think too much of it. But gradually, Kellum started to feel less and less... imaginary. Kellie and her daughter, Madison, tell us everything. This episode ...
10.21.2022 Anti-fans, online hate, and Caroline Calloway This week, we investigate the rise and fall of online influencer Caroline Calloway and the bigger question: Why do some people love to hate? ****** Credits: This episode was written and produced by Grace Tatter. Mixing and sound design by ...
10.14.2022 Lazy Geoff A Twitter thread about a fox named “Lazy Geoff” drew the attention of thousands online. But can a fox really be lazy? Our search for an answer revealed a surprising shift in how humans understand animals and, maybe, the fate ...
10.07.2022 Tales from the Crypto \| Listener Response: Crypto in the Gaming World An Endless Thread listener sends their response to our Tales from the Crypto series. They make the case that crypto and NFTs could improve the video game industry. Ben and Amory also give their final thoughts and reflections on Tales ...
09.30.2022 Tales from the Crypto \| Part III: Crypto for Kids In the final installment of our Tales from the Crypto series, Endless Thread producer Nora Saks and co-host Ben Brock Johnson talk to kids — and parents — who are going cuckoo for cryptocurrency. ****** Credits: This episode was written ...
09.23.2022 Tales from the Crypto \| Part II: Bitcoin Beach One year ago, El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender — the first nation in the world to do so. But how did Bitcoin make its way into this Latin American country? It all started in the coastal town of El ...
09.16.2022 Tales from the Crypto \| Part I: The Hype In this first installment of our cryptocurrency mini-series, co-hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson dive into a viral tweet about NFTs aiding Ukrainians with the war effort against Russia, as well as plans for a crypto island paradise that ...
09.09.2022 Enigma in Sweatpants Endless Thread producer Quincy Walters profiles IG Bum, a mischeivous online content creator who has achieved viral stardom. But who is IG Bum when the cameras stop rolling? ****** Credits: This episode was written and produced by Quincy Walters. Mixing ...
09.02.2022 Swimming Hole: The man, the myth, the leap In this end-of-summer episode of Endless Thread, Ben and Amory take a leap of faith (or do they?) to the depths of an upstate New York swimming hole with a legend surrounding it that's almost as shadowy as exact it's ...
08.26.2022 Encore: Ghost Town In the summer of 2018, Brent Underwood got a text in the middle of the night from a friend saying, "Look at this ghost town for sale!" Within a month, Brent had purchased Cerro Gordo, California, an abandoned silver mining ...
08.19.2022 Don't Do That You shouldn't do it. But then you do, and it turns out great. Two stories of rule-breaking's good side: A college senior prank emails to his entire school, and wild monkeys take residence in a Florida parking lot. ****** Credits: ...
08.12.2022 Jokes, Part II: Stand Up The first documented bar joke was copied onto a clay tablet 4,000 years ago in the ancient language of Sumerian. Scholars have translated it, but the meaning remains lost. After the Twitter account @DepthsOfWiki posted the joke in March, thousands ...
08.05.2022 Jokes, Part I: Sumer Funny, Sumer Not What makes the world’s first documented bar joke funny? No one knows. In a tweet that garnered thousands of responses in March, the Twitter account @DepthsOfWiki posted about a 4,000-year-old proverb written on a clay tablet. The line, which experts ...
07.29.2022 Alyssa When a Reddit post about constant “locker room talk” in a male-dominated office gained traction in the r/TwoXChromosomes subreddit, Ben and Amory invite the OP to talk about the story behind her post. This episode discusses sexual assault from 23:48 ...
07.22.2022 Eggs Tyrone and The United States Chemical Safety Board's YouTube Channel Ben is joined by producer Quincy Walters in this Snacktime episode about little-known government agency with a cult YouTube following and the music mish-mash account that brought Ben back to Instagram after a 3-year hiatus. ****** Credits: This episode was ...
07.15.2022 Swedengate When a Redditor said that he was expected to stay in his Swedish friend's bedroom while the friend ate dinner with his family, the internet exploded with hot takes. Is Sweden the most inhospitable country in the world? We talk ...
07.08.2022 Encore: Tight Squeeze You might not think about caves in the same breath as you do the deep ocean or outer space, but you probably should. There are approximately 70,000 caves in the United States alone, but the vast majority are inaccessible to ...
07.01.2022 Aunties Reddit's Auntie Network, an online community "dedicated to providing information and resources to those in need of abortion services," has been inundated with new members since the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked in early May. ...
06.24.2022 The Loudest Sound Imagine if an explosion in California was so loud that it could be heard in New York City. This is the story of a real event that was just as loud — the loudest sound ever recorded in human history. ...
06.17.2022 Encore: Giddyup! Riding Groups Tap Into Long History Of Black Cowboys In the summer of 2020, images of Black men and women riding horses at protests went viral. But the history of Black cowboys goes all the way back to the creation of the American West. In this encore episode, the ...
06.10.2022 Lost in Translation From a seriously violent tale on Duolingo to a Reddit post about a life-changing mistake, we bring you two stories on the pitfalls of jumping to conclusions. (Grace Tatter, an Endless Thread producer, is filling in for Ben Brock Johnson ...
06.03.2022 TikTok Tics When Ben hears a rumor about kids "catching" tics from watching too many TikTok videos, we set out to investigate. We hear from neurologists and TikTok influencers to get to the bottom of this so-called "medical mystery". ****** Credits: This ...
05.27.2022 'He Died in the Goddamn Waiting Room' With unprecedented hospital staff shortages, COVID-19 has upended the nursing profession. But the r/nursing subreddit offers an online life raft for many in the industry — a place where nurses can speak freely and anonymously about their experiences and the ...
05.20.2022 When Online Extremism Becomes Offline Violence On Endless Thread, we talk about the blurring lines between our online and offline worlds. This week, we discuss the role online platforms played in the mass shooting on May 14, 2022, in Buffalo, New York. We also ask experts ...
05.13.2022 Cyberwitches Since the dawn of the internet, cyberwitches have traded in their broomsticks and cauldrons for floppy disks and smartphones. This week on Endless Thread, we go into the history of cyberwitches, attend a Zoom ritual, and talk to members of ...
05.06.2022 Us vs. Them vs. Andy From a young age, "Andy" wanted to be a police officer. But in 2021, after 15 years on the job, he quit. Andy wrote about his decision in the r/OffMyChest community on Reddit — a choice that left him "half-heartbroken ...
04.29.2022 Egg-cellent If True When a colleague sent us a viral Reddit post from WallStreetBets, we set out to investigate. A redditor who goes by u/throwmetfawaythanks tricked thousands into thinking he cashed in on Fresh Hen Egg Futures, and awaiting delivery on one million ...
04.22.2022 The Faker Sixteen-year-old M.H. was excited for another year on her cheerleading squad in suburban Pennsylvania. But the year was cut short when an anonymous number texted a video of her vaping to her parents and the cheerleading coaches. Vaping was against ...
04.15.2022 There's a r/place for us After its first successful iteration in 2017, r/place returned on April 1, 2022 for four days of battling fandoms vying for space inside a pixelated canvas. We talk to two Redditors who recount the challenges of claiming their stake in ...
04.08.2022 The Herman Cain Award A deep dive into The Herman Cain Award subreddit, which ironically awards those who die from COVID after publicly expressing anti-vaxx sentiments or pandemic-denying memes online. We meet a moderator and a Herman Cain Award nominee, who may have more ...
04.01.2022 Excrement of the Stars Thousands of years ago, a massive meteoroid seared through the Earth’s atmosphere and split into fragments over Greenland. Its pieces were later used for toolmaking by the Inughuit that inhabited northwestern Greenland. In other words: Inughuit people used space knives. ...
03.25.2022 Political feuds don't take vacations Ben and Amory are, sadly, not the type of people who truly "unplug" when they go on vacation, but this week's story is proof that those people do, in fact, exist! It comes to us from "Shared State" — a ...
03.18.2022 Goblins, Toenails, and Beach Rap In times like these, you've got to take joy wherever and however you can get it. Amory and Ben swap unexpected sources of joy they've bumped into recently — from a goblin-themed Reddit post, to the scariest toe talons on ...
03.11.2022 Ballerina in the Sky This is the story of a shocking event that sent Endless Thread producer Quincy Walters, and countless others, down a disturbing and fascinating rabbit hole about a small, daring group of people called wing walkers and a woman who wanted ...

Older episodes

Endless Thread

What's Endless Thread about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Endless Thread episodes:

Worm Wars

'Sinbad Smith' and the troll pole

'You are powerful': Remembering Aaron Swartz

Encore: Llama at a Wedding

Encore: Unsent Letters

Bonus: The ‘Stinetingler’ himself

Listener beware...

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part VI: Something Like Us

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part V: Dating Bots

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part IV: Tay

Encore: Shrinkflation

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part III: Life, death and AI

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part II: Political Bots

Good Bot, Bad Bot | Part I: Bot Therapy

Encore: Haunted House, Holy Water

Encore: Olga of Kiev

Encore: Imaginary Friend

Anti-fans, online hate, and Caroline Calloway

Lazy Geoff

Tales from the Crypto | Listener Response: Crypto in the Gaming World

Tales from the Crypto | Part III: Crypto for Kids

Tales from the Crypto | Part II: Bitcoin Beach

Tales from the Crypto | Part I: The Hype

Enigma in Sweatpants

Swimming Hole: The man, the myth, the leap

Encore: Ghost Town

Don't Do That

Jokes, Part II: Stand Up

Jokes, Part I: Sumer Funny, Sumer Not

Alyssa

Eggs Tyrone and The United States Chemical Safety Board's YouTube Channel

Swedengate

Encore: Tight Squeeze

Aunties

The Loudest Sound

Encore: Giddyup! Riding Groups Tap Into Long History Of Black Cowboys

Lost in Translation

TikTok Tics

'He Died in the Goddamn Waiting Room'

When Online Extremism Becomes Offline Violence

Cyberwitches

Us vs. Them vs. Andy

Egg-cellent If True

The Faker

There's a r/place for us

The Herman Cain Award

Excrement of the Stars

Political feuds don't take vacations

Goblins, Toenails, and Beach Rap

Ballerina in the Sky

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